kate bolduan, cnn, washington. >> elise joins us from the state department. elise, give us a sense of some of the real big issues, the big concerns that he'll walk into if he is confirmed. >> well, i think, suzanne, clearly the middle east and all of the issues surrounding that. you have what's going on in egypt with president morsi and questions about his commitments to democracy and certainly the crisis in syria and how the u.s. is going to a, get rid of president bashar al assad and stand up the syrian people and help them recover once assad is out. the crisis in iran with its nuclear program and trying to get a deal this year, 2013 is seen as a real pivotal year in terms of having to deal with iran's nuclear program and then what's going on with asia and last week you have north korea testing that long-range missile. there are a lot of questions about what's going on with the leader there and this whole u.s. pivot to asia and trying to work more cooperatively to counter china. so certainly senator kerry, if he becomes the next secretary of state have a fu